


beweare, for here be the dragons

by okayantigone



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, M/M, who killed ariana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 08:56:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17383547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: “you know he would have forgiven you,” aberforth says. it comes out less resentful than he’d thought. he’d had years to make peace with the knowledge. “if you had stayed behind, if you had told him you were sorry – he would have taken you back in an instant. it’s the leaving he couldn’t forgive. and i think you know that too.”





	beweare, for here be the dragons

beweare, for here be the dragons 

a sleepy village in the english countryside, one summer, and two brilliant boys in the house of the greatest magical historian to ever live. it sounded so juvenile and idyllic, so young, like a story. how wild they had been then, unbridled, they had laid in the lush green grass of the lawns not yet turned to luxurious homes for the reclusive rich, and stared into the delicate silk of the sky, and they had dreamed. their castles rose into the sky, stretching ivory towers into the clouds, open and wide as air. 

now they were merely old men, and their castles were of stone and iron, and there were no clouds low enough for them to reach. well. certainly, it was the case for gellert. he had gotten his wish, after all – the sacred keep in the mountains, the wide maw of windows gaping into the mountainscape. he had gotten his castle, and now he would never leave it. it was justice

and albus would not either – he was grounded, sunken into the floors of hogwarts, as much as home as it was a prison, a place to keep his students safe from the outside world, and keep the outside world safe from himself, and his foolish mistakes. it was penance. 

aberforth often thought back to that one disastrous summer, albus’ face flushed with the sunlight, and his secrets, that he thought he was oh-so-good at keeping, as thought baerforth could not intuit the imprint of the other boy’s mouth in the shape of his secretive smiles. he had been happy then, brimming with it, and his happiness was infectious, when he came home in the late night, smelling of freshly cut wheat. he would sit by ariana’s bed and fill her head with fairy tales. they would find the hallows. they would bring their parents back. they would fix her. 

how abertforth hated him then. with his talent, and brilliant future, his magic, and fairytales, and the promise. in the end, it was the promise that aberforth couldn’t forgive. a vow to never harm each other. a vow to leave. and that terrible, terrible boy with his own secrets and lies, his legacy of dusty artifacts – how could aberforth had competed. how aberforth had loved albus then, and how pathetically lacking his love had been. 

albus had never needed a brother. what he needed was more. and gellert was more. more, and more, and more, and now he was too much, and he and albus would never see each other again. 

aberforth resented it. he could drain a whole cauldron of veritaserum, and still, he would stand there and say he resented it. albus, that is. and his mistakes, his near-sightedness, his willingness to toss young talented men into the fires of his own madness and ideald. and albus had failed another brilliant young boy, and now the boy was back from the dead, with no soul, and no love, nothing but his army, and a resentment for the man who had lied to him. the man who had stood by, and seen the horrible things happen, and not stopped them. oh, aberforth did relate. 

but tom marvolo riddle’s tragic albus-induced backstory was gaining a rapid and undesireable bodycount. he had left behind the shell of a charming promising youth, and bared his face, his ambitions and his teeth, and sunken them into wizarding England, and from there on, the dark slimy tentacles of his promise would echo across all the corners of europe, as he chased after the same fairytale, the same filthy secret. 

the truth is, aberforth never much wanted to leave hogsmeade, let alone England as a whole. it was a war of ideology, and he never put much stock in it. were muggles good or evil? should we subdue them, or coexist? those were the questions men like albus and gellert could philosophize over in their glass houses, while men like him served pints and held ariana while she cried. and still, he finds himself facing the stone walls of the castle. 

not albus’. the other one. the portkey journey had been positively hellish, and his stomach was still righting itself. the snow was piled fluffy and glittering like the brocade bedcovers ariana had had, padded and warm over the stone. the wind howled through the narrow cliffsides. he walked through the checkpoint, and exchanged little words with the austrian aurors. the name dumbledore still had some stock round these parts. they lead him through the empty halls, and cold draft hit him right in his knees. 

“he’s right at the end of the hall,” the auror said, then paused. “don’t approach the bars. don’t hand him anything. don’t let him hand you anything.” 

it was laughable, really. what would gellert possibly have to hand him? 

he walked to the end of the hall, and he stood behind the yellow line someone had haphazardly painted on the floor to indicate where a visitor ought to stand. it looked fresh. probably, he was the first visitor, at all, ever. not even albus had –  
well. he’d had other things on his mind, after the trials. probably. 

gellert was sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the far wall of the cell, elbows resting on his knees. limp white hair hung around his bowed face like a curtain. he looked up, and his eyes were not dimmed by years, nor solitude. they stared into aberforth, one blue, one dark. his thin bloodless lips pulled into a smile. it looked wrong on him. 

“i had wondered,” he began, and his voice was a gravely whisper. he coughed, a pathetic, raking sound that seemed to shake his whole body, “when you would finally come.” 

abertforth did not take the instinctive step back, though he wanted to. gellert was a seer. he must have foreseen him coming, or maybe he was just that predictable. that un-brilliant.  
he cocked his head to the side, bird-like. he looked tired and starved. time had carved away parts of him, and he was no longer the smiling handsome boy who had taken albus’ heart, and then everything else albus had that was worth something. 

“i had hoped,” he said finally, when abertforth did not speak for such a long time, “that it would be albus, from my vision. you always did look so alike.” 

aberforth scoffed. he’d always hated gellert’s manner of speech. it was so damn ostentatious, a posh charm school lad with private tutors, airs of pureblood pretense, which had not taken him anywhere, it sounded too much like all the hopes of their mother before everything went so, so horribly wrong.  
“you know he isn’t coming,” aberforth says, cautiously. “not now. not ever. he is done with you. he was done with you the moment you left him behind.” 

that gives him another curious tilt of gellert’s head. his neck cracks precariously. he wets cracked lips with his pale dry tongue. “i thought he was done with me, the moment i – “ 

“don’t.” 

gellert lifts his bony shoulders in gracious shrug, and doesn’t finish. 

“you know he would have forgiven you,” aberforth says. it comes out less resentful than he’d thought. he’d had years to make peace with the knowledge. “if you had stayed behind, if you had told him you were sorry – he would have taken you back in an instant. it’s the leaving he couldn’t forgive. and i think you know that too.” 

“it was too late to return.” 

aberforth shrugs. it’s not quite as elegant. 

“you know about the other one, don’t you?” he asks instead. 

“is that why you’ve come?” gellert sounds incredulous. “to make sure i don’t – what? rally the troops?” 

“and why did you think i’d come?” aberforth snaps, working his way to being well and truly angry. “to rehash the sixty year old albus and gellert love story for the ages? oh, spare me. i’m here to make sure whatever foolishness you were chasing – i don’t know. i don’t know what i’m here for.” he spreads his arms wide, gesturing at the empty expanse of the prison. “i guess i wanted to see you were still here. where you’re supposed to be.” 

“i am,” gellert says. “just so.” his smile is small, self-deprecating. “so you can ask me.” 

“what?” aberforth finally takes that surreptitious step back. 

“what you came here to ask. i don’t know what it is. i merely knew that when you came, you would mean to ask me a very important question.” 

aberforth swallows. there’s a lump in his throat. has been, since he touched the portkey. damn seers and their vague, useless gift. there’s nothing to it. it’s been years. there’s another war brewing, and all of them, useless old men, are going to be dead soon anyway. 

“did you tell him?” he asks, finally. then he thinks about it, and changes his words. “did you know?” 

gellert’s look is faraway and ponderous, almost as though he is having one of his visions. 

“i revisited the memory often, after it happened,” he says quietly. he lifts his hands, like an orchestra conductor, then drops them. “i knew. not right away, but eventually. i knew. and i never would have told him. i didn’t.” 

aberforth’s shoulders drop. 

“then why did he - ?” 

“never speak to you, in the years after? i don’t know. you see, you always thought albus and i were of one mind. so did i, for a time. but albus’ mind is entirely his own, and always has been. and i am afraid, it has been closed to me, even since before that night.” 

“you let him think it was you.” aberforth says quietly. 

“you think me so cruel, that i would have rather cost him a brother?” gellert asks, and there is a shade of genuine curiosity in his voice. 

“i don’t know,” aberforth shakes his head now, “i don’t know how cruel you are. i don’t know what you are. i just – i wanted to know.” 

“you let him think it was him,” gellert says quietly. “is that any kinder? did you tell yourself, that if your brilliant, talented brother was in doubt about it, then surely, it couldn’t have possibly been – “ 

“shut up.” aberforth snarls. 

“you blamed him for it, because it was easier than admitting what happened. it was your wand that- “

“it was a misfire,” aberforth shouted, and his voice bounced over the walls. 

“it was a lie,” gellert snarls. “just another secret of the dumbledore boys for me to keep.” 

“you could have told him.” aberforth says, quietly. 

“you could have, too,” gellert says. their terrible, terrible stalemate hangs between them. “you should, you know. he doesn’t have a terribly long time left. i dream about it often.” 

“if his time is coming, so is yours,” aberforth says, and his voice is ugly with spite. “and i am not worried – i’m going to outlive you both, and piss on your graves.” 

it startled a laugh out of gellert. it’s a terrible sound, hollow and unpracticed. “you know, i always did think you were the more handsome one,” gellert calls after him. aberforth quickens his pace, an eagerness to leave this empty place and its ghosts urging him to almost run to the portkey station.


End file.
